I always hated the winter solstice. It was the longest, coldest, and most unforgiving day of the year. It had also always been my day for bad luck. Three years ago on this day, my best friend got in a fight with me and we never made up. Two years ago on this day, my boyfriend broke up with me. And last year on this day, oh, that was the worst. I failed two tests, my next boyfriend broke up with me, and my last two best friends got in a fight with me and we never made up. So, now I'm bracing for whatever is to come this year.

The morning was fairly normal. I woke up to the sound of an alarm clock playing my favorite Disney song, one from The Lion King. I got dressed in tight-fitting blue dyed skinny jeans, a tight black shirt with a blue band logo on it from the band "The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus". Then a blue and white studded belt and my favorite blue heart necklace I had gotten for my birthday several years back. That set my hopes up. Then, I fall down the stairs, burn my breakfast, and miss the bus. 'Here we go...' I thought.

Once I actually got to school, I walked by my friends. Not best friends, just friends. Even though they weren't best friends, or even related to me in any way, they were still like siblings to me. I opened my locker and everything fell on me. Lovely. As a hand tapped my shoulder, and another took a paper off my head, I whizzed around to see another one of my close friends helping me clean up the mess my locker made. He was dressed in tight black skinny jeans which had many rips in them, a black and white studded belt, and a tight black tanktop with one of his favorite bands' logos on it. His long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail.

"Hey, Vex." I nodded, and took the books he was holding in his hands. He smiled. "Thanks." I muttered, and groaned as I started cleaning up the rest.

"Good morning, Mace." He said quietly, nodding then at me to take the next set of books. I obliged. For your information, just in case you don't know, his name is Vexen. Mine's Macey, even though I like to be called Mace. I've known him since we were both four years old. I have a whole circle of friends, thanks to him. I'm thankful for that. "We have English first," he smirked, "which means you get to see pretty much everyone besides Lex. He's out. He went to Winter Camp early." He said, his smile growing wider. I smiled too. English was the one class where we got to sit on the floor in groups with whoever we want, and all we had to do was read. As long as we got it done either in class or that night, we were free to do whatever we wanted. When I grabbed my already messy English binder and overly-ripped copy of the book we were reading, 'Child of the Wolves', we headed to class.

In our English class, we have two choices: A, we read with the teacher, or B, we hang out and do the reading for homework.

As the teacher rambled on, 'The meadow glittered in the morning sun. Granite's paws melted the thin covering of frost and left a dark trail across the silvery grass. For a long time, he and Climber dashed back and forth, making intricate patterns. A flock of black-necked, gray geese flew over the lake, their wings beating against the wind. They honked loudly, turned, and came back. Granite watched them land far out on the water, their great wings extended and their feet stretched out in front of them, sending up a spray as they glided across the surface. His attention caught by their honking, Climber also turned toward the water. Near the shore, swam a flock of golden-eyed ducks. The ducks were feeding, and the playing pair watched them disappear under the water and pop to the surface. Climber was...'

The only person out of our group that was reading was Zexion. He was generally quite quiet. We (all 14 of us) were in the 'non-reading' section of the room.

"So, Mace, how's your bad luck charm going? I wish I could help." My friend Axel said, quite seriously.

"Bad. Fell down the stairs, burned breakfast, missed the bus, had a locker that fell apart...all the usual crap."

"Poor you." He said and patted my shoulder.

I sighed. I closed my eyes and calmed down, then a playing card was flicked at my head.

"Damn it Luxord! Cut it out!"­­­ I said and heard a throaty laughter from in front of me. He was british and blonde. He had a strange attraction to gambling and cards. Xion (one of the only three of us who were girls, it was me, her, and Larxene) smacked him upside the head. "Thanks Xion."

"No prob Mace." She said and smiled. I returned the smile. Then my eyes traveled around the group of us.

To my left was Xemnas, a tan, silver-haired man who was older than us because he stayed back a few times, then Xigbar, who day after day dressed like a pirate, complete with eyepatch, jeans, and black shirt, and his hair was black with silver streaks. Then Xaldin, who was the rebellious one - he had long black hair in dreadlocks, and he never shaves his eyebrows. Vexen, who had never stayed back, since he's the smartest out of all of us, then where Lexaeus was usually sitting sat Zexion, who was more punk then all of us, sitting against the wall with his book, somehow paying attention to both our group and the teacher (he also has purple hair done in an emo-flip). Then Saïx, who had dyed blue hair and yellow contacts, to make himself more intimidating. From a few years back he had been in an accident that left him with a large X-shaped scar across his face. Then Axel, the boy with gravity-defying fire-red hair and green eyes, little tear-drop shaped tattoos under them. He usually wore red and black and he was a pyromaniac. Then Demyx - he was the one I had almost ALWAYS had quite a bit of a crush on. He has dirty blonde hair spiked up into a mullet fashion mixed with some mohawk style, and electric green eyes. He always wore blue mixed in with black. Then Luxord, the punk/goth blonde brit. And Marluxia, the flower cup. He had a untidy bush of pink hair, pink nail polish, and wore black and pink. Larxene, a more soft individual though she could be terrifying at times...Roxas, Axel's really MPD boyfriend, who could be happy one minute then depressed the next, and sugarhigh the following, and Xion, who dressed a lot like me only she had short cropped black hair and the deepest blue eyes I'd ever seen.

"So, Mace, can we get together this afternoon? I mean, unless you die or something due to your bad luck today...." Xion said, locking gazes with me.

"Uh, I think I'm free." I said, and then my eyes glanced towards the clock. It was 9:26, time for us to switch classes. We had Math next, which means I sat in a group with Vexen (who's in all my classes, thankfully), Saïx, Demyx, Luxord, and Marluxia. "I'll see you later guys." I said, and got up the second the bell rang.

When me and Vexen walked into the math room together, the teacher snickered. He was a tall, broad man, broad meaning fat. REALLY fat. He had light brown hair which was thinning more every day, and he must have to dye it once a week, because every day he has new gray hairs in new places. He always wore dress shirts and dress pants, which is odd because a lot of the teachers just wear regular shirts and pants. He also has deep brown eyes. The teacher happens to think me and Vexen are dating, since we're so close. And he's really mean. He likes to tease the kids, and it surprises me none of the kids take his teasing to the principal. With how bad it's been getting, he should have been fired already.

"So, you kids aren't holding hands today? Well, I figured more!" He said with a snooty tone.

"How many times do I have to tell you; we're not dating, Mr. Haines." Vexen said calmly. He had good emotional control, which really helped when he or I was being bullied or something of the sort.

As everyone filed into the room, Mr. Haines stood at the head of the table at the front of the room, looking at everyone, then he took a deep breath and spoke. "Alright everyone, get in groups of five, because it's Math Games Day. Pick one off the shelf and play it." He said. The five people in our little 'group' exchanged glances and e all moved to sit together in a circle on the floor, and Luxord got the playing cards, but as soon as he held them out, Marluxia retorted, "No, Lux. We're not playing cards with you, you always win." So Luxord pouted and put them back, then came to us with a box of dominos. We all nodded and smiled, because us+dominos=madness ensuing in the classroom.

See, we always take all the dominos and steal the rest from the other classmates of ours, then build crazy paths that go up bridges and around desks, and then we knock them over and hope all of them land on the teacher's desk. And it actually worked one year, too. I think we were all laughing about for the next two years.

We started building the path. We began in the far corner on the floor, and wound the trail in curls around three desks' legs, and then we took a few math books, and connected that trail to a steadily-going-higher bridge, then connected that to run over a few desks. Then we made another bridge and made it go down. Then we made one long bridge out of about 30 math books, curling and twisting, then we went up to Mr. Haines's desk, and made a huge twirling and twisting patterns, spelling out the words "You Suck" in cursive, and then we smiled and admired our work. As he walked over to his desk, we ran back to the corner, and tipped the end domino. In a matter of seconds our trail fell down, each domino triggering the next to fall. Then, as the words on the teacher's desk fell, they all made a huge pile on all his papers, making his desk even more of a mess than it was before. But then again, I shouldn't be one to talk - my room's messier than his desk...^_^;;

Mr. Haines sent us all down the the principal's. But man, was that fun. Making a sucker out of the teacher is ALWAYS fun, especially if it's Mr. Haines.

"Alright, what have you done this time, kids?" The principal asked as we all sat down.

"Well, it was Math Games Day, so we took dominoes and made a trail, and some of them went on the teacher's desk. Shame on us, sir, shame on us." Marluxia started and the principal snickered.

"Alright, kids, you can go. Nothing but a bunch of harmless misfits like yourselves couldn't have gotten into much more trouble than you have already." He said, smiling.

"Thanks Mr. Roze." I said, and then hovered in midstep for a moment. "Mr. Roze, can I tell you something about Mr. Haines?" He nodded, and I sat back down, then looked to Vexen. "You stay too, Vex." I called, and he sat down next to me on the couch. "Listen, Mr. Roze. You know how Vex and me are so close. Mr. Haines teases us about our friendship. He always says when we walk in, 'oh, the two lovebirds', 'hey, you two aren't holding hands today,' 'I expected more of you two as a couple' and such. It hurts us, because we're not dating. Vexen already has a crush on someone else." I stated, and he nodded a few times.

"Alright, I'll tell Mr. Haines to knock it off, and if he does it again, then I'll get him on suspension, and if it continues after that, he'll get fired."

"Thanks, Mr. Roze!" I said, grabbed Vexen's arm, and took off back to class.

Mr. Haines smirked at us when we walked in. "So I'm taking it that you all got in big trouble?" He said, expecting me to say yes.

"Nope. We got off the hook, Mr. Haines. And by the way, enjoy your job. While you can." I answered, smiled, then giggled and kept walking back to my seat where the others were already crowding around us.

"What did you say?" Marluxia practically screamed.

"We just told him what Mr. Haines was doing and what we felt after he did that. He said first is a warning, then suspension, then FIRED! Woohoo!" I jumped up yelling, giving Vexen a high-five while I was at it, and of course with my bad luck I landed wrong, twisted my ankle all the way around, and fell.

"Woah! Mace, are you okay?" Demyx asked and crwaled under his desk and helped me get up, although with some difficulty. "You really should be more careful on days like this." He told me, quite seriously, which was unusual for him, so of course he sounded funny. I giggled. "What?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing." I laughed, and limped back to my chair and sat down.

"WATCH OUT!" Came a scream from the other room, and a pen lashed out at my face and cut right below my left eye. A thin line of blood ran down my cheek and I groaned.

"Someone bring me to the nurse." I said, and held out my hand. I closed my eyes and waited for someone to take it. As a warm hand gripped mine, I opened my eyes, hoping to see someone besides Vexen. And that's exactly what I saw. Demyx looked down at me and grinned.

"Come on, you disaster-prone child. Let's get you some medical attention."

We were walking down the main hallway to get to the nurse's, and once we were there, Demyx squeezed my hand.

"Want me to come in there with you?" He asked quietly, blushing a deep crimson.

"Yeah. The nurse in here is RELENTLESS." I grimaced, remembering a few years back when I had a huge scrape on my knee and the nurse used pure rubbing alcohol, practically POURING it on. It hurt like hell.

He let go of my hand then, and opened the door for me as I limped in.

"Solstice time again, huh sweetie?" She asked when she saw me limping.

"Yup. Unfortunately..."

"I'm sure something good will happen by the end of the day." She said and patted my shoulder, then pulled back as I winced.

"Fell down the stairs...basically, bruises are covering nearly every part of my body."

She carried out the normal routine. Cleaning, which hurt, another cleaning, which hurt more, dressing, which was okay...but still hurt, and bandaging, which was the easiest part.

As we were going out the door, I turned and said, "Thanks Mrs. Manave!" and then the door closed behind us.

"Say, after you get together with Xion tonight, can we go somewhere? You know...just me and you?" Demyx said from behind me, and the question nearly caught me off guard.

"S-sure." I said, and blushed like he had before. "Where do you want to go?" I asked.

"A restaurant. I want to take you out to eat. My treat. Hey that rhymes!" He laughed out and smiled.

I laughed too.

After the rest of the day was over, I walked home. surprisingly didn't hurt myself again, and made it home without any additional bumps, bruises, or scratches. Xion walked home with me, and I was thankful my mom wasn't home. She'd want to know EVERYTHING about my date.

"So, Mace...what did Demyx ask you? He seemed totally out of it the whole day. Plus he was blushing and smiling." She gigdled. "He so has a crush on you." She snickered.

"You think? Well...he wanted to take me out to dinner."

"Seriously?!" She screamed into my ear. "Go with him! You totally should!!"

"I am going with him."

Xion squealed. She loved hearing about other people's lives and boyfriends. More of boyfriends, but, then again...he wasn't my boyfriend. Yet.

We unlocked the front door, and walked up the stairs to my room, and I tripped twice. Typical solstice. I groaned and picked myself up. Once in my room, we shut and locked the door.

My room was typical size, but had an add-on built on three years ago. In the far corner by the big window was my bed, and across from that my flatscreen TV, standing on it's own bureau where I also kept my clothes. Then next to that a big bookshelf. I had a large purple and black round carpet in the middle of the hardwood polished floor. Then I had a large easel in the corner across from my bed, sitting right in front of another window that was overlooking our backyard which consisted of a fishpond, pool, white picket fence, shed, and a decorative flower garden with a brick path running through it. Then on the far end of the wall were various posters of bands I liked and such things. In the add on was my most prized posession. A black ivory grand piano. I loved playing it, and I was considering it as a career.

"Anywho, Mace..."

"What?"

"Do you think after tonight he'll ask you out?"

"I certainly hope so."

"Well, I wish you luck, you distaster-prone girl." She said, smiled, and laid down on the floor.